"Word of Wisdom Contacting"

Ni Hao! Another week here in the concrete jungle of Kuala Lumpur! Last week for P-day we went to Sunway mall. Sunway is a ginormous mall that has so much crap! Its how I imagine the great and spacious building! There is just floor after floor of stores! They also have a movie theater, an ice-skating rink, a bowling alley, a water park, a theme park, an Egyptian pyramid and big huge lion statue thing. Its the craziest man made building I've ever been to. Of course we didn't do any of that stuff. We were about to go ice-skating but it was too expensive so we just walked around and ate food. Today for P-day we will be going to the Batu Caves!! That's the place with the giant golden statue. And it has a lot of monkeys who steal your bags so I'm excited!

This week I have felt the spirit more then most weeks. Recently, Elder Avery and I have come up with a new contacting technique. We call it "Word of Wisdom Contacting." This is where we focus on the people who are standing on the sidewalk or outside of their car or something smoking cigarettes. We have noticed that almost everyone in Malaysia smokes, and that almost all of them don't like it and want to quit. Most of them have tried to quit before but have not been successful. So we start of the contacts by introducing ourselves and telling them that we come to share about Jesus Christ and how he can help us change our lives. Then we ask them if there is anything in their life that they would like to change. Almost every time they say they want to quit smoking. So then we share with them how God has commanded us not to smoke. After which we share 1 Nephi 3:7 and tell them that they have a promise from God that they can quit smoking because he has commanded them not to. Then we bare testimony of the atonement and the enabling power of it. Of course we don't say the same things every time or share the same scriptures every time, that was just an example, but when we follow the spirit and teach to their needs of wanting to change, the contacts always are super powerful and the people are always so much more willing to accept meeting with us. We have also tied this in with the new "Follow him and find new life" initiative and it all works and flows together wonderfully. In these contacts we also invite them to be baptized. To smokers and people with bad habits, a new fresh clean slate is something that sounds great to them and exactly what they need.  This I feel has been very effective because the people we are finding have a desire to change. And when they have that desire they will be more willing to keep commitments and really be converted and baptized. My faith has grown as I've felt the spirit testify to me as I testify to these people about the atonement and the redeeming and enabling power of it. I'm grateful for the hard times that I have gone through, as I feel it has helped me to be able to relate to these people more.

This week we have had some awesome miracles where Heavenly Father has given us new investigators. This week we had a goal of 2 new investigators. How we were going to find them we did not know. But as we strived to be more exactly obedient this week and do all we could, God has provided.

We were out contacting Monday night when we get a call from an man saying: "Can I come to the church right now?!" and we were like, "Of course!" He showed up about 5 minutes later and brought his whole family! We did not have this planned so we didn't have a member to come, but we quickly called up a member who lived near by and she came as quickly as she could and we got a surprise member present! The member helped to translate some things he couldn't really understand into Malay. It was a wonderful lesson and the man got emotional during it because he is so desperate for Gods help in his life. He and his family are new investigators.

We had this happen to us twice this week. Last night we were out word of wisdom contacting when a guy we've never met before calls us and tells us he's on the way to the church and wants to meet! Haha Elder Avery and I were so excited! We didn't know how we were going to get those 2 new investigators, but Heavenly Father provided. We taught him a powerful restoration and will be meeting him on Wednesday.

Thank you all for the love and support! Love you!

 

-Elder Schwemmer



I'm getting my two lil buddies ready for missions! :)

 

 

 

 

 

"The Gold Mine"

Heyoo,

 

This week was an awesome week! Last Monday we went and saw the Petronas twin towers! They are so tall it's crazy! This week Elder Nielson from the quorum of the seventy, who is also the head of the mission department for the entire church, toured our mission! He was awesome! He shared with us some really cool things about the Atonement and the enabling power of it! At the training I received a lot of personal revelation and comfort from the spirit. He also introduced to us a way to improve, which Elder Avery and I will be working on this week. He taught us about the "gold mine" which is the less actives of the branch. All the less actives have non member friends and family and at the same time, we will be helping them come back to church. So Elder Avery and I will be visiting a lot of less actives this week. 

 

My faith in the Atonement has increased a lot as a result of Elder Nielsons training. The insights and things he shared were very personal to me and met a lot of my needs. During the training, I was so blown away at how perfect the Atonement and the doctrine of Christ is. I always knew it was perfect but Elder Nielson helped me to re-strengthen that testimony and increase my faith in it. It is now time for me to turn that faith into action. I feel like my obedience has been lacking. Not because I'm doing anything wrong, but I feel like I could be more "exactly obedient." Elder Avery and I have reassessed our obedience and identified things we can fix (such as shorter weekly planning's) to become more "exactly obedient." I feel that I will feel a lot better about myself as I do so knowing that I'm doing literally everything the Lord is asking me to do.

This week I had a cool experience. Elder Avery and Elder Riddle had to go to East Malaysia for MLC so I went on exchanges with Elder Nevili Pei. We worked in his area. While in Subang we went and contacted a referral they had received. It ended up being the wrong address and the person who lived there wasn't very interested. The appointment we had an hour after that had been cancelled so we were trying to find something to do. We stopped and said a prayer and asked what to do. After the prayer nothing came to us, but I figured we had to do something rather then just sit around and wait for Heavenly Father to tell us where to go. So we went and talked to every single person we could see in this neighborhood. After about an hour of doing that, Elder Nevili Pei was tired and needed to sit down and rest for a few minutes. He sat down and called potentials while I read a little bit out of the Book of Mormon. As soon as I closed the book a very strong prompting came into my mind that said "Get to the bus stop now." So I immediately got up and hustled to the bus stop. As I walked there I kind of questioned if it was my own thoughts but decided to have faith that it was the spirit. When I got to the bus stop there were about 30 people there in which all of them but one were Malay. So I talked to her but it didn't feel right and in the middle of our conversation her phone rang and she walked off. Then I turned around and saw this girl that I didn't see before, hunched over on the bench looking like she was having a hard time. So I went straight over to her. I began talking to her but she couldn't talk back because she was very sick. Her throat was hurting and she was having a hard time speaking. So the first thing I did with her was offer a prayer. She was very thankful and we both could feel the spirit. I then continued to talk to her where I ended up sharing the first vision with her and I could feel the spirit so strong. She was so thankful and we set up to meet with her tonight (Monday) at 7. I am kind of sad though because she is not in my area, so I wont see her again until she's on the weekly email when she gets baptized ;)

 

Well that's all I've got time for. I love you guys and am so thankful for all the prayers, the fasting and the support you all are giving me, I think its working ;) Love you all have a great week!

-Elder Schwemmer

 

 

These are my boys from Nigeria!

This little kid is legit!

 

This is my lil buddy from Myanmar!